Coca Cola recycles PET bottle waste into garments

If you're in India, there is a probability that the shirt you’re wearing may have previously been a PET bottle.

The world’s biggest cola company – Coca Cola is recycling PET bottles waste into textile fibres in India, which in turn are turned into fashion items.

Coca-Cola’s largest bottler in India, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), is demonstrating its commitment to sustainability by developing commercial solutions for recycling PET plastic.

In collaboration with Ganesha Ecosphere Ltd. (GESL), the largest PET recycler in India, HCCB established the nation’s first bottle-to-fibre textile recycling operation.

Collected PET bottles are baled, washed, extruded, and converted into regenerated staple fibre by Ganesha Ecosphere, which then are used by textile mills as raw materials to make yarn and then convert them in to fabric and then garments.

HCCB launched a pilot program in May 2013 at its Dasna facility and today, HCCB is recycling PET scrap from all 15 PET producing plants.

“We hope that about 20,000 shirts will be produced in 2014 alone through this program,” said Amit Saha, HCCB’s Chief Sustainability Officer.